Brief description

The module aims to provide students with an understanding of the positive and negative environmental impacts of organic agricultural systems, and an understanding of how to use ecological principles to enhance the environmental impacts plus the ability to scientifically measure these impacts.

Content

This module will cover the following topics:
Environmental impacts of organic and conventional agriculture;
Conflicts between production and sustainability;
Maintenance, enhancement and creation of agricultural habitats and features;
Importance of scale, long term processors and hisotrical context for agricultural systems;
Farm waste management planning;
Resource use, conservation and pollution (key issues, impacts of organic agriculture, potential and techniques for improvement);
Biodiversity (genetic, species and habitat level);
Practical whole-farm conservation planning;
Measuring the environment impacts of various types of agricultural production systems and practices.

Whole-farm conservation plans will be prepared.

Module Skills

Problem solving

The module assignment will develop the students' ability to work independently integrating ecological science, practical agricultural knowledge, and habitat quality assessment to be able to critically evaluate existing conservation recommendations. This involves identifying and solving non-routine problems. These aspects will then be summarised in a report that justifies its criticisms with reference to the ecological and agricultural scientific literature.

Improving own Learning and Performance

The critique of the farm conservation plan assignment for this module requires students to be able to apply integrative learning strategies. To successfuly complete the exercise, they must allow sufficient time to assimilate the various sources of information and for integrating learning from several modules to produce a full understanding of the process.

Application of Number

The wast-management planning workshop requires students to handle and interpret numerical information to evaluate the best solutions for potential problems.

Personal Development and Career planning

The outcomes of the module are designed to provide the skills and understanding that are required by the professional agr-ecologist working in environmental impact assessment or producing agri-environment scheme applications.